One day at school, Emily was talking to her friend Jason when she realized he wasn't eating lunch.

"Are you not hungry today?" asked Emily

Jason looked sad and replied "My mom told me I have to wait until I get home to eat. She has no lunch money for school."

Emily felt bad for her friend and shared her lunch with him.

Right after school, Emily asked her mom why Jason could not eat lunch.

She replied "Sweetie, some mommies and daddies don't have money to buy everything kids need. 'One in six people can't afford to eat food everyday'(Feeding America)."

Emily was shocked to learn that more of her classmates also could be going to bed hungry every night and she decided she would make a change.

Emily learned that "food insecurity" is the term for when someone is not able to eat food consistently. There are four types of food insecurity: high, marginal, low, and very low. Low being an intake of "reduced quality foods" and very low being "multiple indications of disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake" (USDA). 

She read that it can cause many problems like heart issues, diabetes, and not being able to learn because of hunger. "People affected by food insecurity are significantly less likely to have good cardiovascular health compared to participants who were food secure (Saiz, 2016)."

Not only does it cause health issues, but it can affect a persons life span. Studies show there is "a 1% increment in people’s prevalence for undernourishment reduces their life expectancy by 0.00348 percentage points (PPs)" (Beyenne 2023).

After learning more, Emily also searched up how she could help. She found there are many ways to help take action against hunger including:

- volunteering at a food bank

- donating cans of food

- gardening

-food drives

-not wasting food

She decided she was going to build a garden at school that would help her classmates have free, healthy food.